Meyrick, Hans

Daniel Deronda's eccentric young artist friend, who "was made for mishaps". "Only to look at his pinched features and blond hair hanging over his collar reminded one of pale quaint heads by early German painters; and when this faint coloring was lit up by a joke, there came sudden creases about the mouth and eyes which might have been moulded by the soul of an aged humorist . . . There was no want of ability or of honest, well-meaning affection. . . . The only danger was that the incalculable tendencies in him might be fatally timed, and that his good intentions might be frustrated by some act which was not due to habit but to capricious, scattered impulses. He could not be said to have any one bad habit ; yet at longer or shorter intervals he had fits of impish recklessness, and did things that would have made the worst habits." A lasting friendship had been formed between Hans and Daniel at the University, where Daniel befriended the less fortunate Hans, and gave up the opportunity of getting a scholarship himself in order to help Hans obtain a much-needed one. When he meets Mirah at his mother's house he falls in love with her and does not lose hope of winning her until she marries Daniel.

<em>Daniel Deronda</em>

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